The history: a couple of days ago, Paul and I decided that we wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas in our house. The points to clarify are: I am not trying to stop anyone else from celebrating Christmas; the thoughts below are based around my thoughts over the last few days and aren’t intended to be arguments for/against Christmas; Paul and I spent a long time thinking and praying about this and didn’t enter into it because we thought it would sound holier-than-thou… I promise you I really don’t want to sound like that at all!

Anyhow. So the whole issue has got me to thinking about my Christian life, and my wordly life. Giving up Christmas was actually one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make, dispite the fact that I know it’s something God wanted me to do. Why is that? It’s because it’s something I genuinely love and enjoy. It’s not just like some take-it-or-leave-it thing that I’ve felt mildly challenged over and decided yeah, maybe I could live without that. It’s actually a cultural thing that has been integral to my life whilst growing up. It’s a time that has been encouraged and built up on over the years. Also, it’s a decision that affects not only me, but my family and friends as well. Meaning that laying this down was a real sacrifice.

But how easy do we have it here in the West? Yes, my decision affected my family. But did I get shunned from my family for making it? Am I going to get thrown in prison, or rejected from the society I once lived in? And maybe I’m losing something I enjoyed and loved, but I’m not losing any part of my well-being, of my body, or even my life. So if people in China, Africa and other parts of the world can respond to God’s call on their lives even in extreme circumstances like that, how much more should I be able to God’s call on mine to give up some jollyfying in the form of a pagan-based festival?

It boils down, to me, how extreme am I about God, and truly following the lifestyle He has set for me? And what has creeped into my life that is really and truly unhelpful, or even harmful, that I don’t even give a second thought? Am I willing to step outside of my cultural norm, maybe even be ostracised for it, in order to live a fuller and more meaningful life in Jesus? Or do I want to sit still, not rocking the boat, and agree with everyone in order to keep everyone happy?

Rocking the boat really is much harder.

I went into Clacton yesterday with Mum, and my grandparents… I was trying to get my ‘wedding planning’ head on, but not really succeeding, not entirely with it at the moment. Maybe I’ll just sit down this afternoon and try to start making lists! People keep asking me ‘how’s the wedding planning going?!’ and I’m like… uh… yeh. lol. So hey, these things are meant to sort themselves right? I mean, I don’t actually have to do any work do I?!

Then yeh, yesterday evening JAcob is house sitting for the Massey’s and some people went round for a movie… was really bizarre. Like everyone is the same but different. Is odd. I guess I’ve changed as well. But yeh, I thought it might be really weird, but it was good, actually.

So yeh, for those of you who read this to get prayer points, I have a prayer I’d like to point. So I’m just really struggling to keep up with quiet times. I just really need to get the discipline again, because I just really feel like I’m in a place where God can really talk to me and use me and teach me, but I don’t seem to be finding the time to sit down and let Him do that. I’ve been discovering so much about God recently, and the different ways He can talk to me, and I don’t want that to stop because I don’t stop.

So yeh… church in a bit! Seems weird going to church so late in the day, crazy – I have a whole extra hour to fill! Gonna go read some Biblay… gloooory! hehe (PS the sun is shining, yay!)

So, my first gripe is some crazy kids club idea someone, somewhere, with lots of money thought it would be a great idea to run and proceeded to not advertise. Oh, apart from they don’t run it, the urban warriors run it, and I run the first week, to which, so far, we have had 7 different children. Oh, but did I mention not all at the same time? No, I didn’t think I had either. But there, it came up, so I popped it down. And the first day was a grand total of two children. Did I mention that can be awkward? When there are four leaders? It’s like, hello children, we outnumber you massively and our kid’s club is a failure, but yeh, act like you don’t notice that and we’ll all have a great time!

Meh.

Oh, and any church leaders/church workers who may happen to read this, please don’t be offended, but… why are so many church leaders/workers kids such brats?!?! They do my head in!

Ok, those are my major gripes out of the way. I’m sorry. I feel emotionally like a wasp in a shot glass next to a jar of honey right now.

Meh. I also have been comfort eating way more than I ought to. I need to stop eating, and I need to up the jogging with Mel. Oh, on a nice, fun, positive note though, I climbed a hill with Mel the other day, which was fun, made me feel a bit fitter, and was such a laugh. We stood on the top and screamed a bit. Then I proceeded to try and drag her through this weird, overgrown brambly path. Mel was having none of it! Oh, oh, and there is a weird building at the top of the hill that looks ike the perfect setting for a horror movie, with like, the fence and EVERYTHING, it was very exciting apart from the fact that nothing happened, and if something had happened it wouldn’t have been exciting but scary, but yeh. It was exciting anyway.

I watched ’27 Dresses’ in the cinema the other day. It was cute! I think I might just plan a wedding ’cause of it… it inspired me…

Ok, ranting has made me feel a little bit better. Oh, by the way I have no idea who reads this blog, so hopefully you’re not some random stranger who now has some really warped idea of me.

So like, I’m sitting here and I’m thinking about God. and Christianity. And falseness and just the cotton wool, and the pretty, jazzy, sprakly things we always try to wrap the former two up in, and it’s driving me crazy. Like, do you ever feel like you’re… excusing God? Like ‘sooo… uh… yeh, yeh, sin, wow, yeh, that was akward… sorry about that, He’s always on about it *nervous laugh* but, uh… spotlights! now these are cool! right, right?! and like, what the..?! Christian rap?! am I having you on now?! no i’m not! seriously… so like… uh, yeh, bright lights. join us. become a Christian.’ Like, what is up with that?? Why do we so often try to jazz God up? Like is He not awesoem enough by Himself? Does He really need my little deuded efforts to make Him more acceptable? Where is the authenticity in what we’re preaching? Surely in a world that hyped and mediad (is that a word?) from dawn til, well, dawn, the last thing people need is another gimmick, another quick fix, another bright, shiny, desirable object dangled temptingly in front of them. so why? Why bother stressing ourselves out and wasting all that time trying to shroud the gospel in some kind of cheap, shimmery gauze when it shines so much better on its own?

Ok, second rant over. Girl has now spouted. Girl is going to end there!

So, I’ve been learning all about and getting to know Jesus. Not unusual you might say, seeing as I’m on a Christian youth workers course. But yeh, you know, I think you can spend an awful lot of time hearing about someone, whithout actually learning about them. And you can spend a very long time learning about them without actually getting to know them. So yeh, I’ve just been trying to actually get to know Jesus. Like, really know Him, His personality, and what that means for me. I mean if you read through the Bible, you just start to get a view of how totally awesome and manly this man was! Have you ever watched the movies of manly men and thought ok yeh, definitely they are men! (that might not make sense to everyone reading this, but hey, bear with me…) and then someone who watch these protrayals of Jesus on film… and He’s like. Well. He’s nice. He’s very nice. Sweet, even. Just this sweet, nice, toddler hugging guy with a ‘love one another!’ message and sandals. But where in the Bible is that image of Jesus even from? Like this guy insulted people, whipped people, I mean He spoke and people fell over! He spoke and winds and waves stopped! Think of the most manly man you can iamgine… I mean a real man. Like fierce and scary sometimes… but also gentle and loving. And Jesus is like 100 times more than that. Like Jesus’ life was an example of how men were created to be – of how Adam must have been. And then for some reason, we water Him down, and we pick and choose points, and then we’re left with this bizzarre image of what it means to be a man – some cowed over, brow-beaten ‘nice’ guy, who doesn’t fight, or have fire in his eyes. How many dull men do you meet? I mean like, where the fire has gone totally out of their eyes? It’s like there’s something dead there, that used to be alive and excited, but they long since learned that good, Christian men can’t be anything but ‘nice,’ right? Well just look at Jesus! This man argued with demons and took complete control. He was fully in the will of God from beginning to end, but He wasn’t some sort of nicey-nicey push over! This guy had strength… it’s just that He knew when and where to use it – and He did use it! And yeh, Jesus was humble… but again, what kind of picture do we put on that word humility? Push over, right? Cowed down, putting yourself down? No, humility is recognising that you matter, but you want others to matter more! It’s not making less of yourself, it’s making more of others.

So yes. That’s what I’ve been thinking of recently… and yeh. It’s been making me wonder… what would men be like if they felt free to be like Jesus?

So! I had better do the boring update thing before I get on with everything else, right? So my weeks curently consist of…

Monday – mainly just office work! sometimes I get to do other stuff, depending. Yesterday I did some office work, then trained the schools team for a drama.

Tuesday – Again office work, then in the afternoon I help lead a girly group with 5 or so girls. This morning though, we had an assembly at a senior school in which the team performed a drama (see monday!) and I went along

Wednesday – we have cluster in the morning (spiritual input) from 9-1, then my time off is 1-3, then cafe from 3-5, then drop in from 5:15(ish)-7:30, then a youth group from 7:3-10ish.

Thursday – Office in morning, then in primary school from bout 12:30, get back about 3, then help out at English classes for Polish kids from 4-5.

Friday – Half day at the moment… get in at 12, set up and run throughs until bout 4/4:30, discipleship group from 5:15-6:30ish, light hearted youth group from 6:30-8, Livin it from bout 8-9:30. i think! i can never remember timings on friday. then tidy up til bout 10/10:30.

Saturday – generally free, but sometimes a cafe shift

Sunday – I do sunday school on a rota

So! That’s the static stuff in my diary! We add into that extra stuff as it comes and goes! For example the next two thursdays I have food hygiene training from 5-8pm. And in the easter holidays, first week, we’re running a programme for junior school kids and their families to be involved in. And yeh, just general when needed stuff really. After holidays I’m starting in a few new schools as well. And yeh, just stuff involves lots of planning and organising and stuff. It’s good though. But I’m very tired today, left the house at 6:50 and got back at 5:40, so yeh!

So that’s what I’m doing. Now, how am I doing? I feel very tired most of the time. And it can be so draining. Spiritually, emotionally and physically. I think the thing that gets me down most is the spiritual side, I can cope with feeling physically funny, but yeh. It’s been very up and down for me over the last two months.

I don’t really know who’s going to read this! But if anyone does, yeh… I hope that helps a bit. I’ll try and write again later. God bless love!

Ceri x

All the action…

All the drama…

Of…

A llama….

ok, not really, but that rhymed. Actually, yeh, a new blog post will be coming soon. Not right now ’cause it’s half 11 at night and I’m tired, and really ought to be in bed, not writing weird blog posts about the fact that I’m going to be writing weird blog posts, which kind of annulls writing another one, but not really because this one isn’t about anything in particular, so I suppose the other one is a still valid to some certain degree and may yet be held on to on certain grounds of usefulness.

Yay. Long senseless sentences.

I shall leave you with that thought. Love love! xx

—————-

Ceri Townsend

Conference Evaluation October 2007 (Stepping up in Integrity)

What I’ve learned this week spiritually and practically, and the challenges I’m taking away from it.

What I’ve learned Spiritually: It would probably take a lot longer to list everything I’ve learned that I’ve got time for, but here are a few of the things I learned this week.

1. One of the first things Grace Turner did in her lectures on the Cost of Discipleship was to turn our attention again to the phrase to ‘take up your cross.’ She pointed out how, in those days ‘taking up your cross’ basically meant to carry your cross, enduring shame, suffering, sometimes torture, to, ultimately, a painful death. Somehow, I’d never looked at the verse in that way… I vaguely knew somehow from teaching that to ‘take up your cross’ meant to shoulder burdens of some kind, but it really hit home to me what God was saying in this verse, and somehow has fuelled my desire to do so.
2. “The secret of spiritual success is hunger that persists” – Smith Wigglesworth We need to be spiritually hungry, even during the dry times in our spiritual life. It also occurred to me that those dry times aren’t wrong, and don’t make your spiritual hunger any less valid simply because you’re not on a mountain top. Actually, it makes that hunger far more sincere.
3. One of Grace’s lectures was entitled ‘Getting Clean and Staying That Way.’ This was actually a life-changing lecture for me, in which God dealt with an incredible amount of stuff. But a few basic things I learned out of it were a) getting clean requires not only facing up to what you’ve done wrong, but also to where you’re holding on to things such as bitterness, or a feeling of being wronged. b) After you have come clean, you really are clean. God really hit this home to me in this seminar, and totally cleared up my head far more than I’ve felt for months. I truly learned the power of actually knowing your forgiveness. c) The third thing was also the power in a clean heart, and how that releases God to truly work through you in power for others to see.
4. We also discussed spiritual warfare, and one phrase of Grace’s really stuck out to me; ‘Make no agreements with the enemy.’ How often, when we’re feeling low, we allow ourselves to be drawn in by the enemy’s lies of hopelessness, which make us feel so much worse.
5. Generosity is much more than just money – generosity starts in simple things like your words. It’s freeing your heart to be vulnerable to be generous in all areas of your life.
6. The last area Grace spoke on was global mission, which affected me powerfully. Global mission has been very much on my mind recently, but I’ve almost been trying to push it to the background so that I can focus on what I’m doing at the minute. Grace’s talk rekindled my passion, and reminded me again that God gives us a heart for certain places… she had three suggestions: pray, give and go. The first two, at least, I can do for now.
7. The theme of the week was ‘Stepping up in Integrity’ and the worship sessions and devotionals were encouraging us to align our words with our actions, and get stuff dealt with, with God. They probably mostly encouraged me to just keep being passionate in prayer, and to continue to get a heart for prayer, and to learn to pray continually, not just in ‘quiet times.’

What I learned practically: Chris Curtis Came in on the last day to give us a talk on school’s work.

1. How to communicate through jokes and stories.
2. How to write an assembly… we spent quite a lot of time on this! I have to say, it’s calmed a few of my fears of going into school’s, at least I know basically how assemblies work now!
3. How to transform a vague idea into a manageable question for the students to take home and think about.

Challenges:

1. I’ve been really challenged about generosity, both in my words, actions and money. God has teaching me not to get legalistic about my money, but to ask Him to prompt me every time I should give.
2. To live as someone who is forgiven, to take captive my thoughts on a daily basis, and not allow negativity to creep in. Not to make agreements with the enemy!
3. To continue to clothe myself in the armour of God and to know that I am in a spiritual battle, and although I can’t see it, it affects my life; and to live as someone who has power in that battle through Jesus.
4. To stay hungry! Even during the tough times.

————————-

Thank you so much for your prayers and support everyone. Please continue to pray, especially as we’re all starting to go into schools now to do schools’ work… I’d especially value prayer for bravery, as the thought of going into schools scares me!

Write more later!

Ceri

I’ve just got in ten minutes ago, at 5:40, walked home in the rain, woo! I feel a bit damp now. Oh, and nearly got jumped on by three dogs, but it’s all good… gotta love a good ol’ walk through the rec! Seriously, what kind of crzy dog owners still walk their dogs in the rain? And why are there so many of them?! Besides the point I suppose…

Today was an interesting day. Those of us who are on the Junior schools’ teams went into our first school today, to be shown round, to be introduced to the kids a bit, and to speak to the head and find out what he wanted from us. We’ll be doing quite a few one-on-one, working with ten – fifteen kids, then reviewing after 6 weeks. We’ll be running ‘emotional literacy’ programmes with the one on one, and then we’ll have some group work too… not entirely sure what we’re doing there, but hey! One thing that shocked me was the amount of kids with low reading and writing skills, and just general social skills… in a country like England, I didn’t expect that to be an issue, but it seems to be quite a major factor for quite a few of the kids. Also, so many of their home lives sound so sad… but I know we didn’t scratch the surface today. To be honest, I feel really daunted, but I know God will help me through. We did get to chat to a few of the kids at break though… well, not so much chat as play stuck in the mud – so yeh, we chased them and they pulled faces at us, and it was all good!! But I just can’t wait to get to know the kids properly. (sidenote: a lot of the kids we saw at the school come to Light Hearted, yay!)

Other stuff has kind of been usual… some filming, we’ve got our next drama coming up this Friday, I’m narrating… hopefully it’s gonna be good! People watching our practises were laughing a lot, so that’s a good sign! I’m also presenting a game, so nothing major, which is cool, after one week having to do the talk, then the next week doing my testimony! So it’s good to have a calmer week.

Next week we’re off on a youth holiday to Quinta, which I’m going to be a leader for… woohoo, youth holidays! I love ‘em! So I’m really excited, then on the Monday after we get back it’s conference, soooo, it’s gonna be a crazy couple of weeks.

But yeh, I have to go help make supper now, so I’ll be off! Miss you all… leave me comments, make me feel loved!!

Ceri x

Last night was our second evening of youth groups. I’ll explain what happens… we have 3 groups running on a friday evening, from 5:15, finishing round about 10 (arrrg, such a full on day that day!)… the first is Pure Energy for 5-7, the second is Lighthearted for 7-11, and the third is Livin’ It for 11-14.

Pure Energy is the most laid back of all of them, it’s not terribly strctured… they get there and have some free play, or they can make some of the craft that is on offer (oddly enough, I’m usually on that table!), or use playdough, or go on the playstation (playstation for 5-7?! arrrg! surprisingly enough, not a lot of them go there). So yeh, then they have the option to go to the sport’s hall for ten or fifteen minutes… usually some of the crafty girls are too into it to go, so I’ve stayed there the last couple of weeks. lol, yesterday this one little girl was looking grumpy so I was like ‘do you want to make a crown? look there are pretty flowers to put on it!’ ‘I don’t like flowers’ ‘oh, well, what about butterflies?’ ‘I don’t like them.’ ‘shwta do you like?’ ‘I don’t like ANYTHING.’ lol, made me laugh! I got her into it though, muha. After the freetime there’s a story, then a song, then they get picked up.

Then the three of us fromt he Urban Warriors team who do that group dash straight onto Lighthearted with the rest of the team! I’ve been doing tuck with Riina, which is fuuuuuun! hehe. So they come in, have tuck, then it’s basically like a Saturday morning tv show! Microphones, two ‘hosts’ a ‘voice from the sky’, lights, videos, games!! Last night we had over ONE HUNDRED kids to Lighthearted alone, MENTAL!! Last night I gave the talk, which I was a bit nervous about (it was on the Wise and Foolish Builders), but it turned out ok I think. Our dramas are going kinda well at the moment I think, we do them once over really boring, then we pick out an emotion and do it again… last night was dramatic… was very very funny! Oh, another feature of the evening is that there is the ‘Phantom Pie Fiend’ who pies all the leaders… so last ngiht, after my talk, i got pied full on int he face!! But he snuck up behind me and whacked it before I knew what was happening, so my eyes were open, and SHAVING FOAM went full onto into my eyes!!! I staggered around blindly yelping until Mel (she’s a leader! she rocks!) kindly led me into the bathroom and got the worst of it off for me whilst I yelled ‘ow, ow, ow, ow!!!’ I am pleased to report that the phantom did feel suitably bad, however!!! So yeh, then we have various videos as well… a few ‘ad breaks’ where we make bizzarre ads… at the moment we have ‘you know when you’ve been fandangoo’ed’… which is a rip off of the tango adverts. We’ve made a few of those ads, and they involve Mark being mauled basically… I got to roll him down a hill in a barrel of oranges the other week – muha. Other videos we have are ‘prank my friend’ and various other random things like that. Also there are games like space hopper, or toilet paper games, or eating strawberry laces without using your hands… all good! Oh, and songs as well!

So! As soon as we got rid of the hundred odd kids (both literally and figuratively ), we then had the next one… Livin’ it! I was on registration with Jess, so we basically sit there, eat sweets and get young people to sign in. We had like tons of kids in Livin’ It this week too… Livin’ It is basically similar to Lighthearted, but for older kids. There’s no pie fiend though,t hank goodness! But in one of the games 4 leaders had water pistols, so EVERYONE got soaked… so I was pied, and wet, and freezing by the end of yesterday! So yeh they have slightly different videos too, like a rip off of the rock, paper, scissors world championships, using superheros, and we’ve got our own version of ‘made’ going on (a TV program where someone gets turned into something they’re not… like this week Joe became a ballerina and had to give a live performance!). They also have a more serious talk, and testimonies. And various games. Then after the bit in the main hall, they seperate into rooms of their choice to do games, or football, or playstation, or whatever.

And then, once they’ve all gone, we tidy up. I got home at half ten last night, arrrrg! lol

So, there we hace it – a breakdown of Friday evenings! So, what else am I going to be doing that I know of?

Well, I’m starting Sunday School for 5-7 on a rota, once every three weeks. I’m also going to be mentoring a girl. There’s the cafe rota, at the moment I’m put down for Wednesday afternoons, but I’m also doing some Saturdays, and today is one of those Saturdays, I’m doing the evening slot. Once we start school’s work after half term, I’m going to be going into primary schools three days a week. Also, during half term there’s a youth holiday called Quinta I might be going to. And on the days when we’re not in schools, we just show up at the office for regular hours, 9-5 for work. So paperwork, filming, getting SWYM coursework done, or whatever. Wednesdays are our days for SWYM stuff, we have what we call ‘cluster’ where we turn in our journels and diaries for that week, discuss how stuff is going, and have an extended time of worship and teaching in the morning. (we have prayer and worship at 9 every morning) Oh, other things are… Echelon on Wednesday evenings… that’s for 14+, at the moment we’ve been prayer walking around the estate where we meet, and doing detached work (basically going out to skate parks and chatting to young people), and Sunday evenings is also for 14+ and called afterchurch, where basically the young people have a time of chilling, maybe play some dodgeball or basketball etc, then have a few notices and stuff.

So yeh, that’s basically my life at the moment! Continued prayer would be great Oh, another bit of news, I’ve got flights booked to South Africa from 15th December flying back the evening of 1st January, to go and see Paul for Christmas, YAY!!!

Thanks for your comments and encouragement everyone!

Ceri xx

Well, here I am with actually a few minutes to spare to write a post on my blog and tell you all what’s been happening. I’ll try and get a few photos on soon as well. Yay, digital cameras!!

So anyway, what’s been happening over the last two weeks? The week before last it was training and orientation. The first half of the week was telling us about what we’re going to be doing this year in the way of actual paper learning, and we have some lecturers in telling us about random stuff… one guy was basically jsut telling us different games and stories, it was so much fun – we played them! There was also a lot of free time during this bit to pray, get close to God, wander round and get to know others etc. All the people there are being based in different churches round the South West.  We also had worship morning and evening, a few movie nights (we watched ‘Amazing Grace’ it is such a good film!), and other random stuff. Breakfast was at 7.30 each morning, arrrrg it was torture!! After that first half which is called induction, we then went on to ‘Conference’ which is where allt he second and third and however-many year people come along, and we all get training together. There were some interesting lectures!! But it made us all think… some of the stuff we knew already, and it’s so intense, basically lectures all day interspersed by ten minute breaks. And we kept asking questions and stuff, so we usually had five minute breaks!

So yeh, that’s a (very) brief overview of Induction and Conference. Been back in Yeovil now for a week. Not exactly been the busiest week ever, as stuff is still waiting to kick off. Been down to the youth cafe though, which is fun, and have been filming stuff. (go here to see an intro for our team) We’ve also been plannign kids clubs and assemblies, and doing our SWYM work, which includes reading a book, writing a conrerence evaluation, and writing out our testimony – so not too bad!

Anyway, I’m going to go and grab some lunch, so I will say bye for now… please keep praying for me, I really value it, and the messages people have left, and been sending through Mum, it is so encouraging. Thanks everyone!

Ceri xx